Total Evil: The Seeker
by E.D. Harrow
Summary: This is my fan-fiction novel in progress, a spin-off about Tota Livell, the leading character of the indie horror movie THE SEEKERS, directed by John Bowker. The novel also works as a standalone story, a reader doesn't have to be familiar with the movie in order to understand it. I might have grammar mistakes as English isn't my first language, apologies for that.
1. PROLOGUE

**PROLOGUE**

Five nails evolved into sharp black claws. The force of her hand thrust them through a soft surface. She felt the touch of perforated human skin on the upper joints of her fingers, as a few thin streams of blood started to flow down. As she pulled her hand out, she heard a thud. The sound of a lifeless body dropping on the ground. On her hand she felt an oily touch. The touch of a human heart, whose mass was still rhythmically beating, squeezed among her claws.

On her bare and cold forearm she felt the flow of blood. Its scent was strong and penetrating, hot like molten chocolate. She watched that dark red liquid falling, droplet after droplet, on a hard black surface. The surface of a videotape. The fall of every droplet echoed in the dead silence.

Soon she heard her own voice making a malevolent giggle. The sound was gradually deepening into a loud and evil laughter. The laughter of a voice that had to belong to some inhuman, demonic creature. A creature that could not have been born from a mother from Earth.

A sudden scream broke the dead silence of the darkened bedroom and Tota Livell woke up from another nightmare.


	2. CHAPTER 1

**CHAPTER 1**

 **The answers for which she seeks**

 _Corvallis, November 1998_

She jumped out of her bed and rushed through her darkened room to the light switch. Gasping with relief after turning the light on, in a few seconds she happened to notice the pitch blackness in the tiny cracks of her window blinds. The Sun had evidently not risen yet. She glanced down at the digital clock on the small round table next to her bed. The seven-segment digits revealed the current time – 5:46 AM.

Knowing that the nightmare she had just woken up from probably wouldn't let her fall asleep anytime soon, the thought that she should get a few more hours of sleep made her sigh with frustration. But she still laid back on the spacious crimson surface of her bed and pulled the wool blanket over her body.

But no sleep seemed to be coming to her anymore. She was barely capable of closing her eyes, knowing that she could see flashbacks of those horrifying images from the nightmare she had just woken up from - beastly claws in place of her fingernails, a ripped out human heart squeezed among them, blood flowing down her forearm and falling on the surface of an unidentified video tape...

In the several movies of the horror genre she had watched in the 24 years of her life, she had seen her fair share of eerie images, even more disturbing than those she had been seeing in her recent dreams at a bizarrely frequent rate. But for reasons unbeknownst to herself, that recurring dream would always put her through much more terror than any movie possibly could, in spite of the fact that she had had that same dream countless times before.

As her exhausted gaze was passively resting on the white walls around her and on the asparagus fern in the corner next to the door, she found herself recalling details from her recurring nightmare, in one more attempt of figuring out their cause or meaning.

In that dream that never failed to overwhelm her with fear and anxiety, her fingernails transform into beastly claws and pierce through the chest of another human being. As familiar as she was with all the images from that dream, she never managed to see if it's a male or a female person she takes down, ripping their beating heart out with her bare hand. She remembered the touch of hot blood flowing down her forearm. At least that part made some sense, as it would be an expectable resulting occurrence if extracting someone's heart muscle was really such an easy act to perform. But she still wondered about the meaning of those droplets of blood falling on some video tape that also happened to appear in every one of those dreams. The only thing she had clear about that mysterious tape was that it didn't have any label or any detail indicating its possible content.

But what she found even more disturbing about that dream was her own laughter. Every time she would hear her own voice, malevolently laughing at the monstrous act of her hand squeezing a freshly extracted human heart. For some reason, her dream state self seemed to revel in such an inhuman doing. And it was not only her. The dream also contained the laughter of another voice. The deep, eerily piercing sound of that voice reminded her of some dark paranormal entity – a demon, or something even worse. That haunting laughter would gradually grow louder with her own one fading out, resulting in an illusion of her human voice transforming into that otherworldly, horrifying one. Those voices were as bewildering to her as the unidentified video tape.

But the most bizarre fact about that unsettling nightmare was its flawlessly rhythmic repetition. She remembered very well, the first time she experienced it was on the night before her sixth birthday. She clearly remembered the terror and distress it put her through, in spite of seeming to be nothing but a meaningless unpleasant dream. At least it seemed that way until it happened once again, on the night before her twelfth birthday. A double occurrence of that dream within the timeframe of precisely six years seemed like a bizarre coincidence. So she dismissed it as such, until it evolved into an unsettling mystery exactly six years later, occurring once again on the night before her eighteenth birthday. And that was when its true disturbingness began. From her eighteenth birthday on, the nightmare started to happen exactly on every sixth night.

It was impossible not to notice the presence of the number six. _Sixth, twelfth, eighteenth_ birthday. The first _three_ times, the dream took _six_ years to appear. That fact would always make her think of the infamous Number of the Beast – 666. _Since then, on every sixth night. 666 – 666666666..._ Whenever she'd dwell on those numbers, they would always bring her to an inevitable, although superstitious thought that the terrifying nightmare was being rhythmically sent to her by the Devil himself. Furthermore, that scary voice in the dream, evolving from her laughter, sounded exactly that way. Satanic.

Though, her common sense was still aware of that idea being too superstitious to be true. She was completely convinced about it thanks to Mrs. Jones, the counselor she started to visit at some point because of those perplexing and disturbing nocturnal experiences.

 _"I've already told you, Tota." Mrs. Jones said. "In your early childhood you must have seen some disturbing images on TV. A scene from a horror movie or something like that. The conscious part of your brain has forgotten that moment, but the images you saw remained in the subconscious part and they recurringly project into your dreams."_

 _"But why do I always have those dreams in such regular intervals?" Tota asked. "It happens exactly on every sixth night, after I had it on my sixth, twelfth and eighteenth birthday."_

 _"I don't know what content it could have been that you saw." Mrs. Jones replied. "A satanic theme is not ruled out. Besides that, it was most likely at some point between your sixth and twelfth birthday when you heard of the mythological character of Satan and of the Number of the Beast."_

 _"Yeah, it was." Tota agreed._

 _"It's all a game of your subconsciousness." Mrs. Jones explained. "The subconscious part of your brain is still holding on to a superstitious idea of paranormal forces being hidden behind those dreams. And that subconscious belief keeps causing that dream to happen over and over again. All you need to do is to stop giving importance to those dreams. And sooner or later they will stop occurring."_

 _"And how can I learn not to give importance to them?"_

 _"Well, it would probably be a lot easier for you if you found out what exact content it was that you saw on TV,that caused the recurring nightmare." Mrs. Jones explained. "If you managed to see it once again, now in your adulthood, you would most likely be set free of the fear it put into you."_

 _"But how can I find out what it was?" Tota sighed with disappointment. "I don't even remember the moment when I saw it."_

 _"Your memories can be clarified with hypnosis. I can help you recall that moment, and all details of the images you saw. Would you accept that kind of treatment?"_

 _"Of course I would." Tota nodded with determination. "I would accept any treatment that could help me get rid of that obnoxious nightmare."_

She also remembered the day when the hypnosis session took place. She remembered what she experienced during the session. A vivid flashback of a disturbing programme she accidentally saw on TV at the early age of four.

 _She was sitting in front of TV in the living room, happening to be alone as her father was busy repairing a broken pipe in the bathroom. A frightening scene was playing on the screen, carving itself into Tota's subconscious memory. An adult woman's hand appeared on a solid black background. Her fingernails started growing and darkening, taking the form of sharp beastly claws. Then those same claws were seen piercing through the surface of human skin. It was impossible to determine whether the skin belonged to a woman or a man. Next, the same woman's hand lifted up an extracted human heart. It was still rhythmically beating, squeezed among the beastly claws. Blood was flowing down the woman's forearm. Every droplet of it that fell off her elbow echoed loudly in the otherwise silent ambiance. The woman's voice started to produce a sinister laughter, while the screen was still showing nothing but her animalistic hand squeezing the heart. The laughter started to grow deeper by moment, gradually transforming into an eerie demonic cackle. That loud otherworldly noise frightened the four years old Tota, causing her to storm out of the living room in tears._

 _"Alright, that's it. Wake up!" Mrs. Jones said, thus ending the hypnosis session._

That session confirmed the recurring nightmare to be caused by images from television. But it wasn't the complete explanation that Tota sought. In the TV scene, the droplets of blood were falling on an unspecified surface off screen, unlike her recurring nightmare where they were always falling on an unlabelled video tape. Her hunch was telling her that there had to be some meaning to that mysterious item, but no hypnosis session was able to explain its presence in the dream. Furthermore, all the research she had done with the idea of finding the title of the disturbing TV content gave no significant result.

"Mrs. Jones has a point." She spoke to herself after letting out a bitter sigh of frustration. "It's all a nasty game of your subconsciousness, Tota."

When she pronounced her own name, the sound of it brought yet another unpleasant thought up on her mind. A thought of another question she was seeking an answer to, a question that most likely could not be answered any longer - the origin of her peculiar name.

Not a single day passed without her paying a thought to her somewhat frightening full name - _Tota Livell_. In her early childhood she already realized that it was a homonym of the phrase "total evil". And she was certain that her parents couldn't have simply overseen such an ungraceful coincidence. Furthermore, the fact that she had never heard of another female person named Tota made her think she had been given such a bizarre name on purpose. A possible purpose she knew absolutely nothing about.

And most people who knew her really did find that name everything but normal. She frequently recalled some of the countless unpleasant situations she had been through because of her name, most of which happened during her school days.

She clearly remembered some reactions of her schoolmates back in primary school. It started on the very first day when the teacher named out loud every student individually. The majority of schoolmates started to avoid her after hearing her name, some of them even afraid of having to pronounce it. Even if they almost never talked to her directly, she often heard them talking to each other about her, referring to her with a derogatory nickname – _Freaky Name_.

 _Good thing I'm sitting far away from the Freaky Name._

 _Run, the Freaky Name is coming!_

 _Look, someone lost a pencil. - Eek, it's the Freaky Name's pencil, I wouldn't touch that if I was you._

Not even the teacher, who would invariably scold every student referring to Tota that way, was able to put an end to that issue. And it wasn't much better in middle school either, in spite of kids at that age having enough awareness to know that names don't truly define people. Even if they were not afraid of pronouncing her name, it still happened to cause a lot of taunt and mockery, making Tota a frequent target of school bullies. The unpleasant remarks were no longer only a part of gossip, but frequently aimed directly at her.

 _I'd rather be called Death Trap than Tota Livell._

 _Your parents must have hated you when they gave you such a name._

 _I'd kill myself if I had a ridiculous name like yours._

Though, while in primary school she could find some emotional support only in the teacher, in middle school she did manage to find one true friend. It was a schoolmate named Teresa Banks; a very clever student, significantly maturer than a lot of other students in her surroundings. Soon after they got to know each other, Tota and Teresa became very close friends. In addition to spending almost every school break together, they would often visit each other in their free time as well. Teresa was never prejudiced against Tota's unusual name, and she was also good at not paying attention to mean nicknames she was getting, like _Weird Name's Friend_ or _Tota Livell's Tail_. Furthermore, Teresa was the one who eventually helped Tota learn not to let other students' meanness get to her any longer.

Teresa didn't stop being her best friend and favorite free time company in high school either. And in spite of a new school environment, there wasn't much of a progress to Tota's social situation, as the adversities revolving around her name didn't seem to end. In high school, in addition to hearing various derogatory remarks about her name, she had to deal with students spreading false rumors about her. A lot of her schoolmates, especially girls, were making allegations about her spending her free time with occultism and evil magic, some of them even claiming that she was running a secret demonic cult. They would even attribute almost every person's bad luck to an alleged curse cast by Tota Livell. Such rumors coming from ill-willed schoolmates brought her nicknames like _Demon_ , _Witch_ , _Devil_ or _Vampire_ , while some bully boys liked to make fun of her name, calling her _Total Evil_ with emphasis on the latter word in the phrase.

As her school days were bringing such unpleasant incidents one after another, Tota found herself more and more inclined to wonder – Why? Why did her parents give her such an unheard-of name, to form such a disgraceful phrase in combination with their family name? As she started to dwell on that question one more time, it made her recall one of the numerous moments when she tried to get an explanation to it from her father Nicholas.

 _She came home from school and dropped her bag at the front door, storming towards her bedroom with her face soaked in tears. Having heard two door slams accompanied by her bitter sobs, her father Nicholas gently approached her bedroom and opened the door. Tota's tearful eyes slowly turned to his tall and strong figure._

 _"Tota, sweetie?" He spoke to her in his most soothing voice, squatting in front of the bed she was sitting on. "What happened, baby?"_

 _"I can't... take it anymore!" She spoke through her sobs. "They won't stop making fun of my damn name at school!"_

 _"Oh, sweetheart..." Father sat on the bed next to her, giving her a comforting embrace._

 _"Why, daddy?" She asked, looking up to his concerned face, being too distraught to laugh at his unruly dark brown hair or at the garage dust on the glasses covering his narrow green eyes. "Why did you and mother give me this name?"_

 _"Someday, honey..." Nicholas sighed. "Someday you'll know and understand."_

 _As he was pronouncing that very familiar answer one more time, his voice sounded full of sorrow and pain. She had no clue about the possible cause of such emotions that seemed to have gotten to him in that moment._

 _"Why do you never want to answer that question for me?!" She cried in her own despair._

 _"Baby..." Father put an assuring hand on her shoulder. "I will explain it all to you when the time is right. I promise! When that day comes, you will understand everything. And you will understand... why I wasn't able to tell you sooner."_

 _"Ah, dad..." She started to wipe her own tears off, finding herself out of words for another question._

 _"But there is one thing I can tell you now." Nicholas ended the brief moment of silence. "Remember it very well. You, honey, are destined for something magnificent."_

 _"Huh?" She responded with confusion and a tiny spark of curiosity. "For what?"_

 _"You will probably find out... the day when I'm able to explain your name to you."_

 _"Oh now I understand you even less, dad." She felt slightly annoyed by the ambiguity of her father's words._

 _"I'm sorry, I..." Nicholas suddenly stammered. "I'm rambling nonsense, I guess, because... I don't know what I could possibly say to make things easier for you, sweetie."_

That conversation happened when she was still in middle school. But in spite of the time that passed since, there had not been a single day without her wondering what her father meant with those words; without trying to figure out why he was apparently never able to answer her questions as he promised.

Although, in spite of not revealing that secret for her, her father never failed at being her greatest emotional support. She would never get in trouble with him, not even in the usually problematic teenage days when most of her coevals were getting in conflicts with their own parents. Nicholas was entirely dedicated to his fatherly role, always being there to make things easier for his daughter with comforting words and advice, and sometimes with presents when he was able to afford them. He almost never had to punish her, he wouldn't even scold her for using words such as shit or damn.

But in spite of such closeness with her father, Tota never became what's stereotypically known as a spoiled daddy's girl. And the most likely reason why she could have never developed such a personality was the void left in her life after she lost her mother. For the young child that she was when her mother died, such a loss could never be entirely relieved by a fatherly figure, in spite of the immense effort that Nicholas never stopped doing to ease that terrible pain for her.

Tota's mother Raelyn perished in a car accident, still covered in a dark veil of secrets. As she was only three years old when the tragic incident happened, Tota was left with vague, but painful flashbacks of it.

 _On that fatal day, she was woken up in the early morning hours by her mother's kiss on the forehead. She was silently taken to the car, without even getting to change from her pajamas. Raelyn sat her in the back seat next to her stack of suitcases, before taking her place at the driver's seat and departing from the Livell residence._

 _"Where are we going, mommy?" Tota asked after a few minutes of confusing silence._

 _"We're going to... a very nice place, honey." Raelyn answered._

 _Her voice sounded full of distress, for reasons that Tota knew nothing about. The drive went on in deep, piercing silence. In something more than two hours, the car approached the highway and Raelyn began to accelerate onto the highway ramp. She failed to notice on time there was a car approaching at a very fast speed from the road, and the very last memory that Tota had of her mother was her piercing shriek of terror before the inevitable crash._

As she was sitting in the opposite corner of the car, Tota survived the accident with only minor injuries. But for her mother there was nothing to be done. Raelyn Livell died on the spot.

But in spite of the vagueness of those memories, Tota managed to put some facts together over time. The stack of suitcases she remembered indicated that Raelyn was intending, for an unknown reason, to run away and leave her husband forever, and probably separate Tota from her father. Another clue in favor of that assumption was the agitation that Raelyn seemed to be dealing with during the drive, which was probably what prevented her from noticing the incoming car and led her to causing the doomful accident.

Tota often wondered what reasons her mother could have had for what she seemingly tried to do. She often dwelt on that question, asking herself if her mother had really intended to abandon her father. Why would she want to do such a thing? Knowing the flawless father that Nicholas was, she had no doubt he had to be just as good husband to her mother. Furthermore, whenever she'd ask her father what really happened with her mother on that devastating day, she'd see an instant wave of immense grief wash over his face. She had absolutely no doubt, Nicholas loved Raelyn with all his heart. He loved her so deeply that after her demise he never even considered getting married for a second time. But his answer to any question about her death was always the same.

 _"Someday... you'll know and understand." Father replied._

 _"You say the same thing when I ask you why I was named Tota." She remarked with a tone of disappointment. "It almost sounds as if it was connected."_

 _"It... is connected." Nicholas sighed with pain. "In a way, it is. When I'm able to tell you more, you will understand all of it. I promise."_

 _"But when is that going to happen, daddy?"_

 _"I... don't know, sweetheart. I'm sorry."_

But the only fact Tota had clear was that it was the one promise that Nicholas did not fulfill. He never gave her the answers she sought. Why was she given such an inhuman name? What was it that really happened with her mother? Why did her father say she was destined for something magnificent? After dwelling on those questions in vain for so many years, a miracle seemed to be what she needed for the answers to arise.


End file.
